BOSTON -- Five Detroit Tigers pitchers combined on a one-hitter, taking a bid for history into the ninth inning, and Jhonny Peralta's single provided the only run of Game 1 of the American League Championship Series on Saturday night at Fenway Park.

Anibal Sanchez, Al Alburquerque, Jose Veras, Drew Smyly, and Joaquin Benoit did not just combine for a one-hitter, they combined for 17 strikeouts. Benoit, Detroit's closer, gave up the hit, a clean single by Daniel Nava with one out in the ninth inning, but did nail down the 1-0 victory, giving Detroit a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series. Here's how it happened, as it happened...

Austin Jackon's ALCS experience begins much the way his ALDS experience went, as he begins Game 1 by striking out against Jon Lester -- the Detroit leadoff man's 14th whiff of the postseason. If there's a positive to be taken out of that for the Tigers, it means that Jackson is letting his teammates see some pitches to get a feel for what he has, but that does not exactly help Torii Hunter, who also strikes out.

That brings up the key man in the series, Miguel Cabrera, and the first pitch he sees from Lester is on the outside part of the plate. He hits it just wide of the Pesky Pole down the right field line. After a pitch off the outside corner, Lester comes inside, and Cabrera rockets a single off the Green Monster. Pretty much, if Cabrera gets a hit that isn't a home run, it's going to be a single. He can barely move, and it shows when Prince Fielder follows with a single to center field and Cabrera stops at second, hopping a bit. It's questionable whether he would be able to score on a single by Victor Martinez, but that becomes a moot point with a groundout to shortstop to end the opening frame after 20 pitches from Lester.

Anibal Sanchez heads to the mound looking to improve on his performance from the division series, when he got lit up for six runs (five earned) in 4.1 innings by the A's in Game 3. He gets off to a positive start by freezing Jacoby Ellsbury for a strikeout. Sanchez then gets Shane Victorino to swing at strike three in the dirt, but it's a wild pitch, skittering to the backstop, and Victorino reaches first base.

Victorino steals second, and then Sanchez walks Dustin Pedroia, putting himself in a fit of trouble with David Ortiz striding to the plate. Sanchez falls behind Ortiz, 3-1, but keeps up an aggressive approach, getting the Boston slugger to strike out on a pair of check swings -- the first called by home plate umpire Joe West, the out pitch called by third base umpire Alfonso Marquez. It's Sanchez's third strikeout of the inning, but he still is not out of the jam, thanks to that wild pitch. After going to another 3-1 count on Mike Napoli, Sanchez comes back and ties the major league record by recording his fourth strikeout of the inning -- the first time it has been done in the playoffs since Orval Overall of the Cubs in the clinching game of the 1908 World Series, against the Tigers.

Lester runs his strikeout total to four in an easy second inning, getting Omar Infante swinging and Alex Avila looking after a Jhonny Peralta groundout. Apparently unimpressed, Sanchez fans Daniel Nava to start the bottom of the second, then walks Stephen Drew. Finally, the eighth Red Sox batter of the game, Will Middlbrooks, puts a ball in play, and it's a routine fly ball to left field that Peralta looks a little uneasy tracking. For all the trouble the Rays had in the outfield at Fenway in Games 1 and 2 of the division series, Peralta's use in left field to get Jose Iglesias' glove at shortstop is a calculated risk by Jim Leyland.

Sanchez can't seem to get out of his own way, although a 2-2 pitch to David Ross appears to be worthy of a sixth strikeout before the righthander winds up walking the Red Sox catcher. So, when Ellsbury grounds out on a hard-to-handle smash to Iglesias, ending the inning, it is on Sanchez's 51st pitch of the night, a nearly unfathomable amount for two hitless innings.

Lester gives up a one-out single to Jackson in the third inning, but gets Hunter to hit into a 6-4-3 double play for a swift conclusion to any thoughts of a Detroit rally. Sanchez then has his first actually easy inning of the game, against the heart of the Boston order, against all odds. Victorino is called out on strikes, and none too happy about it, then Pedroia flies to center and Ortiz grounds out to Cabrera at the spot where a shortstop would normally be, with the Tigers playing the shift. The 10-pitch inning is vital for Sanchez's hopes of working deep into the game, and with a pitcher's duel emerging and Detroit's bullpen a relative weakness on paper, the longer he can stick around and stymie the Sox, the better the Tigers' chances of stealing this road game.

The Red Sox like their chances of winning with Lester on the mound, too, and in the fourth inning, he gets Cabrera and Fielder to ground out to second, then Martinez to fly to right field. Sanchez responds by striking out Napoli, Nava, and Drew. He's up to nine, and while 78 is a lot of pitches for four innings, Sanchez has thrown only 27 over the last two frames. It's easy to forget because the Red Sox have had four baserunners that they still are hitless.

Peralta leads off the fifth inning with a double that rolls all the way to the Green Monster, but he's caught off base on a fielder's choice by Infante when Napoli throws back to get him. That looms large when Avila singles to right field, although the Tigers get a base gifted back when Victorino butchers the pickup to allow Infante to get to third base -- the first runner of the game to get that far.

Iglesias hits a hot smash to third, and Infante, going on contact, is an easy out at the plate when Middlebrooks throws home. That leaves the Tigers with runners at first and second for Jackson, and a feeling that if the inning ends without a run, it will be a colossal failure. Jackson hits the ball well, but right-center field at Fenway is deep, and Victorino has plenty of room to end the inning as a colossal failure for the Tigers.

It would be a perfect time for the Red Sox to seize the momentum of the game, but Sanchez has other ideas. His platform for the fifth inning is a ground ball to second base, a pop-up to second base, and a strikeout that the second baseman can enjoy without having to do anything. Middlebrooks, Ross, and Ellsbury ratify this Sanchez-Infante slate on an economical 10 pitches.

The top of the sixth inning begins with a groundout by Hunter, and then Lester walks Cabrera, pitching him carefully and not giving in. That is a fine approach with a lefty-lefty matchup with Fielder, but then Lester hits Fielder in the arm with a pitch, and the Tigers have runners on first and second with one out. Martinez hits a bouncer to shortstop, and for a moment it appears that Lester might get out of the inning, but the ball is not hit hard enough, and Martinez is able to beat the relay to first base by a fraction of a second, keeping the inning alive.

Fenway Park comes alive with a "steroids" chant at Peralta, who returned in the playoffs after sitting out the final 50 games of the regular season on a suspension for his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal. Peralta quiets those chants witha single that dunks into center field in front of Ellsbury, allowing Cabrera to trot home with the game's first run.

Infante grounds out to third to end the one-hit rally, and Sanchez has the lead as he goes back out to work on his no-hitter. Victorino tries to bunt his way on, but pushes the ball right to Fielder at first base, an easy out. Sanchez walks Pedroia, who moves to second on a wild pitch, but Ortiz becomes the 11th strikeout victim of the game. With walks to Napoli and Nava, it appears that Sanchez is losing steam, but he strikes out Drew on his 116th pitch of the night to strand all three runners he put on base.

Sanchez's line is a bizarre one: six innings, no runs, no hits, six walks, 12 strikeouts, two wild pitches -- it's a real-life Nuke LaLoosh outing, except that no mascots have been hurt. The Red Sox have left seven runners on base, including four in scoring position.

The inability of Boston's batters to solve Sanchez in a more meaningful way than waiting for him to throw pitches out of the strike zone means that Lester is a bit hard done by when he comes out after 6.1 innings, having gotten Avila to line out before hitting Iglesias with a pitch.

Junichi Tazawa inherits the runner on first base as the Tigers' lineup turns back over to Jackson, who grounds out to third as Iglesias running with the pitch prevents any thought of a double play. Hunter hits a ball deep to right field, and there's a gasp in Boston as the ball goes back and back and back... but, again, right-center field at Fenway is deep, and Victorino makes the catch in front of the warning track to keep it a 1-0 game at the seventh inning stretch.

Al Alburquerque becomes the first pitcher in playoff history to enter a game with the task of protecting a no-hitter in the seventh inning. Mike Carp also enters the game, pinch-hitting for Middlebrooks, and grounds out to shortstop. Another pinch-hitter, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, takes Ross' place and strikes out looking. Alburquerque then strikes out Ellsbury -- the third time the leadoff man has fanned.

Saltalamacchia stays in the game behind the plate, and Xander Bogaerts takes over at third base for Boston, with Craig Breslow relieving Tazawa in the eighth inning. The Boston crowd, growing frustrated with the evening's developments, starts sarcastically cheering West's ball-strike calls. It really doesn't have an effect on the one-out walk to Fielder, or much of anything else. The drama in this game is now in the bottom of the eighth and ninth, centering around who will pitch those innings for Detroit, and whether the Red Sox will be able to scratch across a tying run.

Actually, there is drama before that centering on whether the Tigers can pad their lead, because Peralta doubles with two outs and Fielder has to stop at third because the ball hops up to the stands and is touched by a fan. Ramon Santiago pinch-runs for Peralta, which is odd because Andy Dirks or Don Kelly would make more sense as a defensive replacement in left field, but in the meantime Infante gets an intentional walk to set up the lefty-lefty matchup with Avila. When Avila flies out to center field, that returns the drama to the no-hitter.

Leyland's logic on using Santiago becomes clear when he puts Kelly into the No. 3 position in the lineup and left field, while leaving Santiago in at third base. It's a gamble if the Red Sox tie the game or take the lead, but a move designed to prevent the Red Sox from being able to tie the game or take the lead -- it's Leyland's best defensive alignment.

Jose Veras takes the reins of the no-hit bid, and clearly he has been paying attention to how the Tigers' pitchers have been working because he strikes out Victorino -- the 15th punchout of the night for Detroit's staff. Dustin Pedroia goes down looking to become the 16th strikeout victim, and that's it for Veras. Drew Smyly becomes the fourth pitcher of the no-hit bid because he is lefthanded and so is the man coming to the plate, Ortiz.

Smyly goes to a full count on the biggest threat in Boston's lineup to tie the game with one swing, but he wins the battle by getting Ortiz to hit a harmless fly to center field, getting the Tigers through eight innings without having allowed a hit. They are one inning from completing the third no-hitter in playoff history, joining Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series and Roy Halladay's no-no in the 2010 National League division series.

Boston closer Koji Uehara comes in to try to hold the Tigers' lead to a run. Doing so is a struggle when Iglesias leads off with a single and Hunter doubles him to third base with one out, but that brings up Kelly in Cabrera's spot, and Uehara strikes him out. Fielder sends a flare toward center field, but Drew makes a stunning over-the-shoulder catch to keep it at 1-0 heading to the bottom of the ninth.

The job of closing out history falls to Joaquin Benoit, and he gets right to work by going to an 0-2 count on Napoli. After a ball low, Napoli looks at the pitch that becomes strikeout No. 17 by Tigers pitching.

Nava breaks up the no-hitter with a clean single to center, and all of a sudden, Fenway Park is alive, with both the no-hitter over and the tying run on base. Quintin Berry immediately pinch runs for Nava, but does not try to steal as Benoit struggles with his control. After pitching coach Jeff Jones comes to the mound, Benoit gets Drew to fly to right field.

Bogaerts is the last hope for the Red Sox. On the second pitch, Berry takes off and makes it to second base, beating the throw from Avila and tag by Iglesias. The count works full, and somewhere in there, the clock has crept past midnight. And it strikes midnight for the Red Sox in Game 1 when Bogaerts pops up to shortstop to end the combined one-hitter.